The Digital Photo Guy

I’ve had several requests for the Cheat Sheet I published last year so I resurrected it. The purpose is two-fold. First, make the dSLR Cheat Sheet available to those who missed it the first time and second, point out the new, cool Search Box at the top of each page. As a test, I entered ‘cheat sheet’ and it immediately popped up several articles where I had mentioned the Cheat Sheet. Be sure to read the companion piece (registration required).

Lest you think I’ve suddenly gotten smart, let me disabuse you of such silly notions. I paid Paul Schroeder, a really smart guy in Luxembourg, to make changes. My participation was limited to writing design specs and sending payment. The trick when developing a website is to hire someone who is both a designer and a coder. Many great designers can’t write code to save their lives and many coders can’t design their way out of a paper bag. Paul’s designs tend to be light and airy but I felt comfortable he could adapt the dark theme used on this site. If you need a web site designer, contact Paul.

Why I Use Double-Opt-In for Registrations

I received feedback saying the double-opt-in registration was too much trouble so I’d like to tell you why I do that. First, I hate spam. I really, really hate, detest, loath and revile spam. Therefore, I don’t ever want to be accused of sending spam. Sometimes, people register and forget. Then, they receive e-mails from me and think I’m spamming them. A double-opt-in system reduces the chances of that happening. Second, mental midgets have been known to register others as a way to harass and annoy people. This avoids that problem. Third, robotic web scrapers roam the internet scraping content off web sites to be used for their own malicious purposes. I’ve found links to my site from sleazy operators for who-knows-what purpose.

It’s not my intent to make it difficult for readers to access this site but I feel I have a responsibility to make sure it’s safe and enjoyable. The double-opt-in system sends an e-mail to confirm that you really registered and that you’re a real person. The second e-mail containing the password is manually sent so it doesn’t always go out immediately.

A Stomach Churning Photoshoot

I’ve heard the difference between a Fairy Tale and a Southern Fairy Tale is that a Fairy Tale starts out, “Once upon a time…” while a Southern Fairy Tale starts, “You ain’t gonna believe this $!*&…” This video is of the Southern Fairy Tale variety. David Hobby, publisher of the wildly popular Strobist site, has a YouTube video of a recent shoot that can only be described as “insane”. Check out the rigging on the videographer as he films a kayaker doing even more insane things. I used to think racing my bicycle 200 miles across Death Valley was crazy but that was a piece of cake compared to this.

Sorry, I just learned the bad link was still active in this post.

Be Careful Out There…

I don’t normally post this stuff but I’ve received this scam e-mail three times over the past day and it seems to be targeting photographers so be careful. The body of the e-mail starts with something like this:

Hey, some jerk has posted your pictures (u understand what kind of pictures are there) and sent a link of them to all ur friends. I have already replied back. Said, that he is an idiot. See the link:

(link removed)

Miles Zavala

ScamDetective.com has a story about this scam. If you look carefully at the middle of the screen capture, you’ll see a file name PhotoArchive.exe. Never, ever, ever open a .exe file from any unknown source. For tht matter, don’t open .exe files from known sources. Do you really trust Uncle Ernie or Aunt Ruthie to recognize a malicious file?

The two tools I’ve used to protect myself for many years are Mailwasher from Firetrust and AVG from AVG.com. Mailwasher is cool because it let’s me “peek” at mail before I actually download it to my PC. If it looks suspicious, I delete it directly off my ISP’s mail server. It’s also heuristic meaning it learns your usage patterns so it can better detect things that don’t look right. AVG is an anti-virus program that’s been around for ages. It had a rough patch for a few years when it crashed systems but it’s now back on track and offers good protection without causing your PC to slow down. Both are available as free downloads for personal use.

While we’re on the subject, if you send me an attachment other than a .jpg image file, I’ll never see it because it’s automatically deleted.

Rick Sammon & Outdoor Photographer Show You How

Outdoor Photographer is one of the few magazines to which I subscribe. It’s always packed with useful articles and inspirational photos. In the past, their website was a bit of a hodge-podge but now they’ve made major improvements and it’s a regular stop for me. One of the cool new features is OPTV. Here’s a video by Rick Sammon that should be very useful for typical students of The Digital Photo Guy.

This is the basic level of photography that my students are seeking. If this is too simple for you, you’re probably too advanced for my classes.

The Digital Photo Guy Blog Gets a Facelift

This is the 6th year for this site. During the first 4 years, it was a static site that was rarely updated because making changes was excruciatingly slow, complex and costly. In 2008, I resolved to fix the problem and commissioned a web developer to develop a new site that I could easily and quickly update myself. He recommended WordPress and the initial implementation took just 6 weeks. As soon as he was done, I started making changes and quickly learned how to do just about everything by myself. I’m no rocket scientist but WordPress makes everything simple and straightforward.

Now, a year after the initial launch, a new static home page has replaced the previous dynamic home page. A dynamic home page was fine in the beginning but, now, with so many articles and posts, it was quickly becoming unwieldly. Readers couldn’t easily find the information they sought. A static home page can act as ”street signs” to help point readers in the right direction. As you can see, some of the signs are still not working. That’s because all the MMTs, posts and articles weren’t always correctly or fully tagged.

Tagging the material at this time would be counter productive because each update would generate an e-mail notification of an update and readers wuld be innundated with e-mails.

Starting in 2010, I’ll be more careful about tagging each MMT, post and article so readers can quickly find all material pertaining to Cameras/Lenses/Gear, Photo Editing and Photography.

In the meantime, the existing tags (right side of main blog) can help you find specific articles or MMTs. You can also use the Seach box along the right side of the main blog.

A website is a never-ending process. If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment here. Good light, good memories and good luck in 2010.

It’s time for a new photo contest. This time, the theme is holidays. Being American, I’m partial to Thanksgiving during this period. For readers from other countries, the photos must reflect some sort of national celebration. The contest is open to registered readers of this site. Registration is free. The contest is open now and submissions will be accepted until December 8, 2009. The winner will be announced in time for them to receive the prize by Christmas 2009 unless they happen to live outside the USA in which case, all bets are off as to ETA.

800+, 8.5" x 11" pages

The prize is a Photoshop World Workbook from Photoshop World 2009 in Las Vegas. It is 800 pages of PS tips, tricks and hints from virtually every class at PSW. For a peek at the contents, see this description on my site. Because the book is heavy, I’m asking the winner to pay US$10 via PayPal for shipping.

Photos will be judged on three criteria:

1. Exposure – is the photo correctly exposed. Correctly does NOT always mean right edge of histogram at right side and left edge touching the left side. Many photos look better when one side or the other is pulled in to achieve a specific “look”. Color balance will also be evaluated.
2. Focus – is the photo in focus or was blur used artistically. If your portrait has a sharp ear but blurry eyes, it will be noticed. Not only must the important parts be in focus but the unimportant parts must not be distracting. Controlling DoF is an integral part of good photography, it will be evaluated.
3. Composition – what is the emotional impact of the photo? Does it tell a story or do the colors/shapes/lines/negative space evoke an emotion? Does the photo engage the viewer? Does it create tension through unanswered questions? More than anything else, I’m looking for photos that have impact, that makes me sit up and notice.

Since I am the sole judge and arbiter, here are some of my biases. As much as you think your kids/grandkids are precious, I rarely find any redeeming artistic value in photos of children or pets. On the other hand, I love landscapes, portraits, wildlife, birds, flowers, still life, architecture, old things, new things, shiny things, rusty things and just about anything. See photos on this site to get an idea of what yanks my chain, floats my boat, tingle my toes and, in general, makes me happy, sad, excited, thrilled, thoughtful or otherwise emotional. BTW, I’m also not a fan of street photography unless your name happens to be Henri Cartier-Bresson.

All photos must be resized to 640 pixels along the longest side and no larger than 1MB. Send it to me via e-mail or post it on your own website and send me a link. If you send a link, it should be a link to one photo. In other words, don’t link to a page with a gazillion photos and expect me to figure out which is your entry. The photo must have been taken with a digital camera (any type, make, model) and the only edits allowed are crop, color correction, levels and sharpen. No composites or collages will be considered. HDR will be accepted but the more it looks like a single frame, the better your chances. Each person is limited to three (3) submissions. Once a photo is submitted, it can be withdrawn but not replaced.

The purpose of this contest is to promote photography as an art. I want people to elevate their photography beyond snapshots of Fluffy & Rover at the backyard barbeque. I want more people to see the potential within themselves. Even if all you ever take are photos of your kids/grandkids, I want you to make them into art, not simple snapshots.

Legal stuff – By entering a photo(s) in this contest, you affirm that you are the photographer with all rights appertaining including, but not limited to, copyright. You agree to hold harmless the owner and publisher of this site and contest promoter from any claims, past, present and/or future arising from any actions related to the photo(s) submitted by you or in your name. By submitting a photo(s), you agree to convey an irrevocable, non-exclusive 5 year license to The Digital Photo Guy (Lee Otsubo) to display the photo(s) and use them for teaching purposes. All other rights remain with you. Any part of this agreement/contest may be modified by The Digital Photo Guy without notice.